Quoted in this NYT article.
The idea she says she wants in this lecture that shouldn't feel like a lecture is that the wife is responsible for her own enclosure in a "doll's house":
"So that’s not just, oh, Torvald is a villain because he’s put Nora in a cage. Nora has stepped in the cage to gain what little power she has. Because girls are taught so young to be smaller, right? So our voices get higher, we don’t want to be threatening, we’re docile and meek. That’s kind of bred into us. But that’s part of how we are helping it continue, women not being seen as equal. We’re playing a part so we’re palatable enough, so that people hopefully will listen to us."
The production is relying on star-power to make it seem big enough for Broadway:
There are no period costumes, no props, nothing resembling a set...
Asked how it felt performing live in such an unvarnished way, Chastain was blunt. “Scary,” she said. “It’s very exposed as an actress working this way, because it really is all about the words and the feelings and the relationships. [The director's] note is always ‘simple, simple.’ Simplify it, simplify it, simplify it.” Though it was unnerving at first, Chastain adapted to [the director's] extreme minimalism, which is so austere that it can feel almost untheatrical. It’s been liberating, she said.
The American Players Theater did a great production of "A Doll's House" in 2019. It was so good I went back and saw it a second time. They also did the recent play "A Doll's House 2," which shows the characters 15 years later. Back in the 1970s, I saw a Lincoln Center production of the play that starred Liv Ullmann (and Sam Waterson, who, insanely, by necessity, performed his role on crutches).
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which is so austere that it can feel almost untheatrical
Since everyone loves to pay $400 for the theatre and have it be untheatrical I predict their run will be longer than Cats…
Doll House plot summary: Rich bored ladies pretend to have real problems.
This shit really got to me in college. In retrospect, that was just because I wanted to get laid by well-to-do, soft suburban girls. They seemed quite exotic compared to the hard scrabble farm girls from my rural Illinois home town. Plus, the farm girls were religious and didn’t want to put out except for marriage.
And I did get laid! Every generation of men gets manipulated by this bullshit appeal to chivalry. We can’t help ourselves. The ladies really know how to play it. The rich, soft girls seduce every generation of men into condemning their fathers and grandfathers for the sake of pussy.
With the rise of preachy advocacy 'documentary' films (Michael Moore; Al Gore), TED talks, and lectures in Broadway 'plays' -- many on the left reveal that they badly want to attend religious church services. But, their parents and grandparents killed religion so they don't understand what they seek.
For those who need religion there is no substitute -- gotta have perfection and answers to everything and clear rules. As such their children will be 'new conservatives' and one political pendulum swing will be complete.
We watched "The War of the Roses" last night. (It didn't stand up to my memory of it.) The relationship between the couple and their difficulties sound like the Ibsen plot. Neither character is likable.
Chastain is no Turner.
Chastain is no Ullmann.
"Ah, you fake just like a woman, yes, you do"
"So our voices get higher, we don’t want to be threatening, we’re docile and meek. That’s kind of bred into us."
No need to breed something into anything that was already put there by nature. Man need not make crooked what God already made straight.
[A]s new classes of girls mature, and you can always get a new one, if you are willing to overlook certain weaknesses in the departments of thought and feeling. But if it is thought and feeling you want, you can always read a book, or see a film, or have an interior monologue. But of course with the spread of literacy you now tend to get girls who have thought and feeling too, in some measure, and some of them will probably belong to the Royal Philological Society or something, or in any case have their own 'thing,' which must be respected, and catered to, and nattered about, just as if you gave a shit about all this blague. But of course we may be different, perhaps you do care about it. It's not unheard of. But my main point is that you should bear in mind multiplicity, and forget about uniqueness. The earth is broad, and flat, and deep, and high.
Barthelme, Snow White
Stanley Cavell wrote an essay on Doll's House "The Conversation of Justice" in _Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome: The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism_
Cavell is a good place to go if you're baffled by the attention something gets, e.g. Shakespeare, but this essay, fun as it is, didn't pull me in. Lots of good points along the way but they seem to be Cavell's own, not the work's.
He puts it in with Hollywood remarriage comedies, a favorite film genre of his.
Well she's not wrong. De Beauvoir addressed it all 70+ years ago. But it's not all nurture. Fact is men are bigger and stronger so it's a game we must play.
Anyway I always confuse Dolls House and Hedda Gabler.
Jessica Chastain was born in 1977, so she’s been the beneficiary of a quota preference in education and employment over men her entire life. She was raised in a prosperous home, with a fireman stepfather in Sacramento. She wasn’t rich, but she was well above middle class. She attended college at Juilliard, the most prestigious arts school in the country. Incredibly expensive. Somebody, probably that fireman stepfather, paid for a lot of lessons for her and drove her to amateur gigs when she was a kid.
Firemen and policemen are known to be very good, hard working and morally upright fathers and step-fathers.
And, she’s going to stand up on stage and bitch about being a victim because she’s a woman.
That really takes some chutzpah. That play act does pay well. Gets you scholarships and grants. It’s an industry, or rather, a racket.
I’m such an advocate, I’m so outspoken, so even putting me in the part, we’re already doing something, right?
I, just by being me, have made all the statement necessary. Don't you understand, this is ME in the lead role, nothing else need be said! Me, me, ME ME ME ME ME!!!
I feel like I just got lectured (yet again) by Jessica Chastain, before she even stepped onstage to not lecture. What a contrarian way to market it.
I'm at the point where I know who the activists are because they're always so busy pointing out their real goal in life, which is activism (whining with a lecture). And I find that I tend to stay away from seeing these activist perform as much as possible. Whether it be on TV, a movie, a play, or musically. I don't care about their fight. I have my own. I care about the play, and the original intent, with original words and meanings.
If you want to change the intent and/or meaning, write your own damned play.
Why not just have the actors yell at the audience?
Here's how to update Doll's House: Make it a gay couple. The Nora or Norwood character is played a Timothy Chalamet type who is made by his Stephen Fry type partner to wear a dog's collar and clean house. The Timothy character submits to this abuse because there is something in his nature that is attracted to such abuse and, also, something in his nature that rebels against such abuse. The Chalamet character becomes aware that all this time he was a woman trapped in a man's body. He transitions and embraces the feminine side of his nature. He becomes a true woman and finds true happiness in his submission to Torvald's dominant energy. But here's the kicker: Torvald tires of living in a suffocating relationship with a clingy, needy woman. He's the one who slams the door and goes forth to see fulfillment and independence....This version of the play will require some rewriting, but it's sure to be a big hit. If it features some tasteful nudity, it's sure to attract a crowd.
She's really impressed with herself. I always get her confused with Ron Howard's daughter. Which one of them ran away from a T-Rex in high heels?
I remember going to see "An Unmarried Woman" with my girlfriend in the late seventies. The most remarkable thing about it was that ten minutes after leaving the theater, I noticed that I wasn't even thinking about having been to a movie. I was hot for Jill Clayburgh, but even that didn't do it for me.
It's all about me!
Sounds ghastly.
She is a gorgeous woman.
But a typical leftist scold.
What a shame...
It's a good take. Nora was perfectly happy living in the Doll's House until she found out her husband was a coward who couldn't be relied onto protect her. It wasn't until then, when she realized she couldn't depend on anyone else, that she decided to depend on herself.
Come back in 5 years and chances are she's got a new husband and is living perfectly happily in a new Doll's House.
So much of the dialectic around gender dissatisfaction is an endless fruitless rehash of grievances that can only be brought to an end with the arrival (for both man and woman) of a kind of wisdom that is seemingly unteachable.
That said, if you've never read Plato' Symposium, especially the speech of Aristophanes on the topic of sexual attraction, it's worth a look. And even if you have read it, it's worth rereading. It's comic, absurd, and true in the way myths can be true.
It's a TED talk.
While we await Althouse's non-review of this play:
“How am I not being my authentic self in order to be palatable to others?”
Over the last two centuries or so, has there been a more trite and cliched notion than the seeking of one's "authentic self"?
"how society judges women like Nora, who reject marriage and motherhood"
Positively. Dem politics revolves around catering to them.
Of course, it depends on the meaning of "reject." The marriage market for educated women is worsening, and "society" is doing its best to disturb close familial ties. Some rejections suffer from the illusion of agency.
Not a comment on Ibsen, but on the ideology emanating from the article: Like all true believers, according to the Althouse theorem, progs don't really believe in autonomy the way they profess: they insist on imposing palatability on deplorables, and they revere Leviathan more than authentic selves.
Dolls House is a feminst piece of art. Written by a man.
Last time I saw the play I was struck at what weirdos both Nora and Torvald were. People planning to kill themselves, forging documents, embezzling money. At the end she leaves her 3 kids beause she figures out her husband doesn't love her and is a bit of coward, and she needs some ME TIME.
Of course, to keep people interested, plays have to be about oddbals and losers. We meed villians, and people with "Issues".
In the play, neither main character has any real moral beliefs, they're just acting out societial expectations, and their personal desires. And Nora finally decides her personal desires outweight societial expectations. If she any real morality she would've stayed with her Kids.
"I’m such an advocate, I’m so outspoken, so even putting me in the part, we’re already doing something, right?"
Just try telling an actor that she's not as significant or consequential as she thinks she is.
Shouldn't she go back to the Ukraine to grovel for pictures with Zelenski again??
”So how can I as an actor approach it in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m here to give everyone in the audience a lecture?"
It’s called acting Ms. Chastain. You might wish to try it sometime.
Ms. Chastain was born 98 years after the debut of this play. What’s changed since then? About everything. Let’s look at what things were like for women in 1879. The germ theory of disease was new, for one thing, and Pasteur’s paper linking microorganisms to contagion was only published the preceding year, in 1878. In 1879 many doctors still rejected the idea that they needed to wash their hands before assisting a delivery, and so 13% - 18% of women died of puerperal fever following childbirth. Yes, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis had demonstrated that the incidence of puerperal fever could be reduced by the simple expedient of hand washing as early as 1846, but most doctors ridiculed Semmelweis even after Pasteur’s paper was published.
In 1879 the role of housewife was much more challenging than today. Housework and child-rearing in an upscale household were performed by servants, and housewives had to manage the household servants, including hiring and firing and writing references as needed. They also had to manage the household budgets. It was a different world, and if Ms. Chastain and other feminists wish to draw parallels between Nora’s plight and 21st century realities, well, that horse you’re beating died so long ago only parts of the skeleton are left.
I often have to talk about Ibsen for my work as a tour guide here in Norway. While I appreciate his historical importance, I can't stand watching or reading his plays. The boredom is excruciating. I find the dialogue too stilted and he's very heavy handed in getting his message across.
They also did the recent play "A Doll's House 2," which shows the characters 15 years later
What a horrible idea! The best thing about A Doll's House is the ending. It should be an open question about what happens to Nora. The most likely outcome at that time would be that she'd be forced into prostitution to survive.
Checking Wikipedia, I see that sequel has Nora becoming a successful feminist novelist. Not very realistic.
Temujin,
"What a contrarian way to market it.
"
She's just trying to make its appeal more... selective.
Apropos of God-knows-what, the role of Nora in "A Doll's House" was Jiang Qing's, fourth wife of Mao Tse Tung and infamous member of the "Gang of Four", favorite as an actress. Jiang Qing became a successful actress in 1930's Shanghai, a city which had a large foreign community and was open to European culture. Apparently, Ibsen's plays were among the European imports which tickled the fancies of Shanghai's best and brightest.
I'll stop the pedantry now. Thank you for your patience.
I like William's update.
I always thought Torvald, the imaginary man, got a bad rap somehow, dramatically. But it's been a long time since I read the play. Couldn't Ibsen have correctly diagnosed 19th century Norwegian society as far too patriarchal -- without quite applying his moral scale equally fairly to the two characters? Torvald may have benefited from a man's greater social powers, but he didn't make the rules; he had just had to learn them and apply them as they stood.
The play is carefully set up to help the audience give Nora the benefit of a clean slate, morally speaking, despite some of her actions. Not least the compromised ethics of that final action. Torvald does not get that benefit. Is that because "No woman should ever have to take responsibility for her behavior, ever"? (H/T Gahrie.)
I remember Claire Bloom playing Nora in the movies -- VG, as she almost always was. But something about the drama of that ending, and the conventional analysis of Nora's supposedly liberating (but was it, really?) action, always felt incomplete to me. It's been a long time, maybe I forget something; I guess I will have to reread this one.
Ibsen: "It is the duty of the Writer to stand in judgment on himself!"
Chekhov: "And his privilege to acquit himself."
Or something along those lines, heard that literary exchange long ago.
"So how can I as an actor approach it in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m here to give everyone in the audience a lecture?"
By overacting. Go full-on Drama Queen. In other words, be yourself.
ST: "The rich, soft girls seduce every generation of men into condemning their fathers and grandfathers for the sake of pussy."
I missed out on seduction by rich girls. In fact, I don't think I've ever known any, and you can speak for yourself and your forefathers.
I also missed out on appreciation of Theatre.
Because girls are taught so young to be smaller, right? So our voices get higher, we don’t want to be threatening, we’re docile and meek.
Women in the United States in the 21st century are more privileged and powerful than any other women who have ever lived. They have a higher standard of living than any other woman who has ever lived. They also have more privilege, more power and a higher standard of living than 99% of all the men who have ever lived.
Why can't women ever be happy and satisfied?
She's really impressed with herself. I always get her confused with Ron Howard's daughter. Which one of them ran away from a T-Rex in high heels?
It was Dallas Bryce Howard who ran from the dinosaurs. They do look and awful lot alike.
Anyone want to bet that Ms. Chastain supports men pretending to be women competing against real women?
Remember the two Black kids pretending to be girls and running track in Connecticut a couple of years ago? Does anyone know if they're still identifying as a woman?
I predict their run will be longer than Cats…
"Cats". I will never understand how anyone finds that show appealing.
Any time I read some comments like that, that women were raised to be meek, and small, and quiet, I wish they were in front of me so I could ask:
Is that the way YOUR grandmothers were? Because my grandmothers were both badasses.
And so were my grandfathers.
Just lucky, I guess
Her bitchface always bleeds through into her roles.
"I’m such an advocate, I’m so outspoken, so even putting me in the part, we’re already doing something, right? So how can I as an actor approach it in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m here to give everyone in the audience a lecture?"
How about doing it as a mime, wearing a bikini? How’s that for “pared down”?
Jessica is definitely in that “to be seen and not heard” category.
I love the way they always say 'the theatre!' And how they are perpetually projecting.
stop dragging my heart around
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5i7j0VhEHw
"I’m such an advocate, I’m so outspoken, so even putting me in the part, we’re already doing something, right?" <=== This is called managing expectations down
If you don't want it to sound like a lecture, try spinning it.
I can buy myself flowers
Write my name in the sand
Talk to myself for hours
Say things you don't understand
I can take myself dancing
And I can hold my own hand
Yeah, I can love me better than you can - Miley Cyrus - Flowers
I'm cheering myself up with things that can't possibly cheer anybody up, yet everybody says this is what you do after a breakup.
---Checking Wikipedia, I see that sequel has Nora becoming a successful feminist novelist. Not very realistic. [Amexpat]
I totally agree with you. Except for one thing -- that is actually what did happen. After "Nora" was released from the asylum where her husband had banished her.
And Ibsen was involved as he rejected a request from "Nora" to help introduce her to his publishers, from whom she hoped to earn the money with her writing. After which rejection, "Nora" took out the loan illegally.
At least, that's what Wikipedia says about all this. Very much based on a real-life case in which Ibsen had been involved. Very surprising to learn this.
@ Kai Akker
Thanks for the information. I should have known that. Now I do.
According to the Wikipedia entry for Laura Kieler, the real life inspiration for Nora, she returned and reconciled with her husband. She also "never forgave Ibsen for using her life as fodder for his controversial drama". That's a different story line then "A Doll's House 2".
“ She's really impressed with herself. I always get her confused with Ron Howard's daughter. Which one of them ran away from a T-Rex in high heels?
It was Dallas Bryce Howard who ran from the dinosaurs. They do look and awful lot alike.”
Bryce Dallas Howard. Bryce looks better.
“ She's really impressed with herself. I always get her confused with Ron Howard's daughter. Which one of them ran away from a T-Rex in high heels?
It was Dallas Bryce Howard who ran from the dinosaurs. They do look and awful lot alike.”
Bryce Dallas Howard. Bryce looks better.
I saw Ullman at the Kennedy Center in Ibsen's Ghosts, with a young Kevin Spacey as her syphilitic son, according to Wikipedia, in the early 80s. We'd read An Enemy of the People in HS. I wasn't impressed with the lectures in either. Thinking of his plays reminds me of the narrator's voice on PBS's Frontline.
Gahrie said...
Because girls are taught so young to be smaller, right? So our voices get higher, we don’t want to be threatening, we’re docile and meek.
Women in the United States in the 21st century are more privileged and powerful than any other women who have ever lived. They have a higher standard of living than any other woman who has ever lived. They also have more privilege, more power and a higher standard of living than 99% of all the men who have ever lived.
Why can't women ever be happy and satisfied?
**************
the answer by now is obvious: in the higher IQ cohort, wymyn realize they are NOT the bringers of civilzation. They simply supply bodies to keep it going. They shriek with horror when they understand that.
All men know that they owe their lives to a real female, their mother. Except, of course, the women who feel free to KILL their babies.
But every woman out there needs to realize that she can not take a single step w/o benefiting from the work that MEN have done to keep them alive in the matter they think they "deserve".
The floors you walk on, in the buildings you live in, the electrical grid that keeps you wamr or cool depending on the season, the cars you drive, the planes you travel in......
Wymyn are filled with rage that their nonsense ideas of "repression" don't include the FACT that men have given them their lives of luxury, indolence and safety.
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